


Sanctuary

by viceversa



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Codependency, Episode: s05e18 The Pine Bluff Variant, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Episode: s05e18 The Pine Bluff Variant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 19:38:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17814257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viceversa/pseuds/viceversa
Summary: Mulder, entangled with the New Spartans and wracked with guilt. Scully, suspicious and worried. How do they cope in the aftermath of this case?





	Sanctuary

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Minuete](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minuete/gifts).



The operation at Folger Park made her uneasy. The plan was hastily put together, the task force new and incohesive. Separation from Mulder knocked her off balance. Nothing good had ever come from watching him on tiny monitors in a bureau van. She was powerless in a delicate situation, and then it all went to hell.

“What what what are you seeing?” Scully suppressed her rising fear and adrenaline, trying to focus on the chaos unfolding.

The beta target, on the ground. Reports, something eating away his flesh, fatal. Instant. No warning. And then they lost sight of Mulder, who was chasing alpha target, the one who murdered a man in front of the whole damn FBI and CIA.

He can run fast. So fast. “Where’s Mulder?”

“Mulder was on him, no way he couldn’t catch him,” Skinner reassured her, reassured the team.

“Mulder _respond_! Mulder, suspect is armed and dangerous. Pursue alpha with extreme caution.” Like he’d ever done anything with extreme caution before. “ _Mulder_!” A split-second decision. “Damn it!” Scully vaulted from the van, chasing after him. Her partner was in trouble. Something was wrong, she could feel it.

Images of him laying prone on the ground with his face half melted away assaulted her as she ran to find him. She spotted him through the trees. He was standing next to a car containing alpha target. But he wasn’t making a move to apprehend.

Mulder appeared seconds later behind her, inappropriately nonchalant at the outcome of events.

“Scully!”

“What happened?” She saw it happen, and she didn’t understand.

“We lost him.” Mulder shrugged.

“What do you mean?”

“He got away.”

He walked off, starting a jog back to the van to report, and left her standing in the middle of a trail, questions unanswered.

-

The operation at Folger park almost killed him. Skinner and Leamus barely gave him notice, and he had to scramble to create his position. He was playing secret agent in a room of good guys, no one on his side but his boss and a CIA leader he didn’t trust. Mulder had to maintain face in six different ways, just to save his own ass.

Every other instance, he had time to prepare before contacting the New Spartans, to get in the right headspace. He didn’t have a character to play—it was just himself. Himself with the added traits of treason and murder.

The deeper he went in to this operation, the more he regretted taking it. But he thought he should help. It was his speech and comments at the UFO conference that opened up this contact with the terrorists, and it would be wrong to turn it down.

Then they told him to keep it from Scully.

At first it was easy, all he’d had to do was push some not-quite-correct documents at them and feed them enough of the truth to infiltrate further. Then it started getting serious.

Folger Park barely worked as planned. He was the runner, he jogged behind Haley and saw him off, and then he had to immediately turn to Scully and cover. Mulder saw the flash of confusion in her eyes when he shrugged off her questions, and then he ran away.

-

The recordings from the mission made Scully suspicious, and she hated the churning feeling in her gut. Mulder wouldn’t do this, he wouldn’t double cross the FBI, not on a case with stakes this high. The New Spartans were no laughing matter. They were domestic terrorists, intent on overthrowing the government and killing anyone who got in the path of that goal. And she had proof that Mulder helped one get away.

Mulder entered the office, avoiding eye contact. She questioned him about the tape. He brushed her off, uselessly shuffling papers on the desk, not looking up.

“We’ll be late for the hearing.”

He walked past her again, not the Mulder she knew, had known for over five years. Not the Mulder that let a known criminal escape. Not the Mulder that had her back, that was honest with her. This Mulder was hiding something, something bad, and Scully didn’t know what to do.

-

He hated this. He couldn’t look her in the eye and lie to her.

He lied to her without looking, brushed her off, and hated himself a little more each time he did it. But he couldn’t tell her. Now that he knew first hand exactly how dangerous these men were, he wouldn’t risk her becoming a target and getting hurt because of him. Again.

He’d been caught on camera, letting Haley escape. She confronted him, and he’d done nothing to sway her opinion. _You’re right, Scully. I did help that murdering bastard terrorist get away. I did lie to you. I am helping them._ He hoped it would be worth it in the end.

The debrief went as expected, and they all got nowhere. Just like Leamus had intended. Scully was a wildcard, now that she knew something was up. Mulder hated his confidence in her silence.

Here he was acting like a jackass, making jokes in front of one of the most high-profile task forces he’d ever been a part of, even in this capacity as double agent or spy or whatever the hell he was supposed to be, and she lied for him. She was a better liar that he was.

A lie of omission, but a lie nonetheless. Skinner pretended not to know who the accomplice at the park was. She knew. Mulder knew.

She called his name at the end of the meeting. He walked away.

-

Scully followed him. The longer the idea stayed in her head, the more she worried. A group of people who were hell-bent on overthrowing the federal government seemed right up Mulder’s alley. God knows he’s been talked into believing more ridiculous things.

But he wouldn’t condone murder. He wouldn’t condone this violent anarchy. If he was in with them, which looked more and more likely as she staked out the seedy motel he had just entered, he was in deep. Too deep. His alias was Mr. Kaplan.

He was hiding. From god knows what, meeting god knows who. Driving off with them into the night. She followed the BMW with her lights off.

And then she was nearly run off the road.

Scully’s car was surrounded by armed men who brought her to Skinner and Leamus. They explained. A deep cover assignment. Don’t worry, Mulder was acting _honorably_. They had made him infiltrate their ranks, made him risk his life. Alone. And they tried to blame it all on him speaking at that damn UFO conference he practically dragged her to.

He could die. And Skinner made it twice as worse by not telling her. She had put his life in danger, just by following him!

The bioweapon, the dangerous double agent gamut, the lying.

“Agent Mulder is at a delicate point.”

They could find out and kill him in an instant, and she wouldn’t even know where to begin looking for the body.

-

A bag over his head. A rocky car ride. Being led into a decrepit building, hands tied to a table, bag ripped off. Yelling. Screaming, pleading, to save his life.

A sharp headbutt that broke a man’s nose.

Belief that he wasn’t lying, that he was loyal to the New Spartans.

An instant of relief.

And then.

A pinky finger, dug from his fist, ripped back, folded in half. Pain. Unimaginable pain.

-

A movie theater, in Ohio. She didn’t want to go. She wanted to stay, to help Mulder, to be there if he needed her. But she had to go. Skinner came along, witnessed the damage, the carnage. Scully couldn’t help but see every victim in Mulder’s clothing, their faces eaten away to the bone, grotesque smiles aimed at a blank movie screen.

Her heart ached for Mulder. Would this be how she found him? Would this be her last image of his face?

They were on the next flight back to D.C. and she went straight to his apartment.

“Scully, get out of here!” He yelled at her, immediately, and the ache within her was a chasm and she was trapped with no way out.

“Mulder, I know what you’re doing. Skinner told me everything.” _Too late_ , she thought.

His finger was broken, and he still wanted her to go. She stayed, she did her duty, even though she was irrationally pissed at him for getting himself into this mess.

She reset his finger, and ignored the tears of pain on his face just like he wanted her to. He didn’t mention hers in exchange. And they talked, and they reconnected, as much as they could, with short sentences and little turns of phrase.

He told her to leave, she told him to please, please be careful. He smiled at her, a broken sort of smile, like he knew he couldn’t be careful, and she almost kissed him goodbye.

-

A quick meeting with Skinner, still shaken from his impromptu torture session. Hiding it, behind bad jokes and a blank face.

“What happened to your hand?”

“Terrorist lie detector test.”

“Well did you pass?”

“I must’ve, I’m still here.”

That meeting wouldn’t go in his official report. Not all of it.

No tail on this part of the mission. _You’re on your own_. Like he hadn’t been before this. Like he hadn’t been alone in a farmhouse six hours ago when Haley shoved the toxin in his face, when his hands were strapped to a table, when he thought he was going to die.

Mulder appreciated that Skinner was concerned. But Leamus wanted it done _right_ , reminded him about the _big picture_ , and he was sent in alone.

“If you don’t hear from me by midnight…” _Tell Scully I’m sorry…_ “Feed my fish.”

He’d wanted to kiss her, the night before, when she fixed his hand. Like any good movie spy, before a dangerous mission. The climax of the movie. The hero gets the girl, even if it’s just a kiss, even if that’s all he ever gets because he dies on a suicide mission for the greater good, or what the government considered to be the greater good.

Instead he sent her away.

It was a dumb thing to compare this clusterfuck of a mission to, to a movie. Movies ended well, predictably. There were clear heroes and villains. He didn’t know what to expect with this. He was on autopilot, flying straight into a mountain. The greater good.

-

A roomful of dead civilians, taking a look at the weapon that caused it, the careful engineering to create something so evil. She hated how terrified she was.

A synthetic covered toxin, activated by dermal contact. Lethal. Deadly. No known cure or treatment, and even if there were it would kill him instantly. Him. Mulder. How dare they do this to him, to them. How dare they make him deceive her, make him lie, isolate him from his only support system. Panic.

Then it clicked. The bioweapon wasn’t from Russia, it was home grown. The former government project had continued in secret, had developed a weapon so horrible it did this. The CIA had sent Mulder on a suicide mission.

She called Skinner, and she prayed.

-

Mulder’s job was simple. He just had to pretend and play as one of the guys. He was given a vampire mask, and bit back a hysterical laugh, remembering Chaney, Texas. All he had to do was rob a bank, dressed as a vampire. Simple.

It was fast, half hidden in the folds of the mask. Flashes would come back to him later, in dreams, in his periphery the next time he deposited a check. Civilians, terrified, laying on the ground. Crying. In shock. Children. Never before been taken hostage. Amateurs.

And that man, the brave one, only doing his job, only trying to be helpful and hit the silent alarm. He was shot. Mulder was told to finish him.

He had to stall. He had to just stall, until they could leave. Simple. He had to spare this man’s life. Simple. He could do this, save one man. Simple.

But he couldn’t.

Mulder didn’t pull the trigger. He died, either way. What was that man’s name? Did he have a family? Did he leave anyone behind?

More chaos, back in the armored car, making the escape. Burning money. They’d sprayed the toxin on the bills. More innocent people were going to die.

Bremer pulled a gun on him. Haley suspected Bremer of being the rat, and he felt a flash of guilt that Bremer would die but at least he could go back to Scully. Then Bremer played the tape. Scully’s words, her voice, the last time he would hear them since now they had proof.

_Be careful, Mulder._

_I’m sorry, Scully._

Kneeling next to Haley. Haley sent free.

Frog marched through a field, plastic sheeting whipping loose in the wind. _Scully, Scully. I’m so sorry, Scully._

“On your knees.”

He thought of her, tending to his hand. Her tumult over his pain, his dangerous position. Scully would be his left-behind family. Would she find his body out here, in this field? Or would he be listed as MIA? Her last words to him, to be safe. Her trembling smile when they had their first open conversation since this all began. The tenuous touch of her hand on his arm, his cheek, making sure he was going to be okay for the night. The yearning he felt when she left.

A shot. A split second, not knowing if he were alive or dead. Scully.

-

She fell asleep waiting for him in the motel parking lot. And when she woke up and saw the maid come out of his room, she knew, she just knew that she had lost him. Skinner had told her that this part of the mission didn’t allow for any more contact. That they wouldn’t hear from him, that he was on his own against them. He couldn’t stop it, and even if they tried he could be killed if someone found out.

And then she realized what their plan was.

The next few hours felt like an eternity and an instant. All Scully thought about was finding Mulder, making sure he was safe and whole. Making sure that hundreds or more innocent people didn’t die at the hands of domestic terrorists. Making sure that her voice was loud enough to demand attention and respect, in a room full of men who all thought they knew better.

And she did it. She found him on the security tapes. She found the bank. She quarantined the money. But finding Mulder was out of her control. And then he appeared, in a random car, yelling at them all to listen. It felt like whatever had had a vice grip on her heart had let go. Mulder was alive.

Scully’s voice skipped over his name when she saw him. “Mul-der.” They were still in crisis mode, in handling the situation. Not here.

She updated Mulder, reveling in his presence. He was barely keeping his attention on her, a manic look on his face. A slight touch, her hand to his arm, for half a second, it’s all she allowed herself. All he needed to come back to her.

-

She was alive. It was his first thought, irrational, but maybe not. What if she’d touched the money, the toxin? What if they had found her, somehow, and killed her like they were planning on killing him?

Scully was alive. She figured out the plan, she saved lives.

But he was full of nervous energy, adrenaline from robbing a bank and nearly dying and being told to run still overworking his heart. He needed to wrap Scully in his arms. He demanded answers. He knew the truth. He knew they would never tell it, that Leamus was a part of it, that innocent people died for nothing and he was supposed to have died along with them.

 “You’re saying I was set up? That I was being used? That this whole operation, the people that died in that theater?”

“Agent Mulder!” The CIA contact, Leamus, appeared from around the corner. “Our government isn’t in the habit of killing innocent civilians.”

“The hell they aren’t! Those were tests on us, to be used on someone else!” Mulder knew it was useless, the fight. But he was surged on by Scully’s input.

“You knew about this! You knew all along!” Scully’s inner turmoil burst forth, a shot of anger directed at the man who was truly responsible, at least for some of it.

But they were denied. Leamus was dirty. There was nothing, nothing they could do. They were trapped, duped, framed, used. Traumatized. For nothing.

-

Scully was shattered, dismayed once again in her trust of and belief in their government, hating that she still tried to hope for the best. This time she wasn’t surprised, but it still hit her like a punch to the gut. The CIA used Mulder, sent him on a suicide mission, and for what?

Leamus left, Mulder turned away and was halfway to the road before she noticed. Scully excused them both to Skinner and followed. Now that she had him back, he wasn’t going out of her sight.

“Mulder wait!”

He stopped, mercifully. “I want to go, Scully. There’s nothing else to do here. You heard Leamus.” He gestured angrily behind them.

“I know.” Scully touched his arm again, this time holding on, trying to bring him back to earth. Mulder was radiating nervous energy, like he was about to sprint home or punch the next man who looked at him funny. “I know. Let’s go.”

“I - I don’t have my car. That, that car was, uh.” Mulder stumbled, pointing at the mystery car.

“Hey!” Scully turned briefly, beckoning an officer over and explaining the situation. Mulder handed the keys over with a blank stare. He was shutting down.

“I’ll drive you home. You need some rest, and to tell me what the hell happened.” A blank stare.  “Please, Mulder.” She said it in a rush, an order wrapped in a request. Mulder let himself be led by her, hand on arm, gentle. He tried not to think about the field. His destination was different this time.

-

He felt like he was about to implode. The sour taste of adrenaline in the back of his throat, the sharp, phantom pain in the back of his head where a bullet had almost made a new path, the real throbbing of his broken finger all warring for his attention.

How can he tell her what they did, what they almost did? What did it matter, now that it was over? How can he admit how easy it was to blend in with them, to play the crazy rogue agent that hated the government enough to kill innocent people? How easy it was to convince them of his treason?

How can he tell her that, when he thought he was about to die, his last thoughts were of her?

-

Scully was perched on his office chair, tense. Mulder sat on his couch, bent forward with his head in his hands, the fight having gone out of him completely on the drive over, receding internally, boiling within.

“Mulder—”

“I don’t want to talk about it. It’s not worth it.”

She looked at his head, cradled in his hands. His voice was muffled but clear. She felt helpless, as helpless as she’d felt during the whole damn case when it came to him.

“You can go home. We’ve got a report to fill out tomorrow.”

“I’m not leaving, Mulder.”

“Well get ready for a night spent in that desk chair, because I’m not sleeping tonight and I don’t own a bed.”

That’s it. The tone of his voice made the decision for her. Scully got up and walked past him and into his room. She located an empty go-bag, as he seemed to have a dozen just laying around, and started packing for a night’s stay. Five minutes later, as she was putting together his shaving kit in his bathroom, Mulder found her.

“What are you doing, Scully.” There was no emotion in his voice.

He was dissociating before her eyes, and she was about to fall apart. She could be in charge at her apartment, be in control. She had to do something, and this was it.

“You’re coming with me to my apartment, and we are going to talk, and you are going to get some rest since you obviously can’t do that here.”

“I am not—”

Scully snapped. “No! Mulder, listen to me! You’re in pain, and you’ve been through _hell_ this week. I have unanswered questions, and you have to talk about this or its going to eat you up, just like it has for weeks, or however long you were lying to me.”

“Scully, I didn’t want—” Mulder replied quietly, like he knew she wouldn’t hear him. But she did, and her shoulders dropped.

“I’m sorry, I know you didn’t have a choice. I—I want to hear the whole story, Mulder. I hate not knowing what happened to you.”  
Mulder nodded, resigned to her attentions but internally grateful. He followed her out, locking the door, trusting instinctually that she’d packed everything he needed.

-

Mulder felt empty, sitting in the passenger seat of her car, still in the clothing he was almost executed in. All black. Fitting for a funeral.

Scully parked outside of a restaurant and left him in the car. The smell of take out made his mouth water, and he tried to remember the last time he ate. The last time he slept.

He followed behind her all the way to her apartment door, his go-bag held in his good hand. It was heavy. She’d overpacked. He didn’t need much.

They ate dinner in silence at her kitchen table, decompressing, and she told him to go change while she cleaned up, and then they could talk.

Talk. They had instituted a rule, years ago after some horrible case in some horrible small town. Children were involved, he remembered. Both had been shattered when they wrapped it up, and she had followed him to his room, sat next to him on the bed, and tried very hard not to cry.

 _“Studies show that the sooner you talk about a trauma you experience or witness, the less likely you are to be haunted by it,”_ he had muttered in a monotone, his psychology degree filling the silence between them.

She had talked. He had responded. She cried after all, and he held her and ignored the fact that he cried, too.

Since then they tried to just dump out their experiences to each other after something like this, after the bad ones, and it had helped more than hurt when it came to sleeping through the night. They couldn’t have made it this far in their job without doing this. They’d both be institutionalized otherwise. He shuddered at the thought.

-

“Ah! Scully!”

She sprinted the short distance to her bedroom, just in time to see Mulder fling his turtleneck shirt across the room, his breaths coming in big gulps. He was just supposed to be changing. She reached him and put her hands on his arms and he jumped at the touch until he saw it was her.

“Breathe, Mulder. It’s okay, you’re okay.”

His eyes were red, stressed, and she knew he wasn’t really okay, but she didn’t know how to help.

“Tell me. Please. You know it helps,” she said, feeling hypocritical at best, helpless at worst. He’d come with her to her apartment, but he refused to talk so she let him be, content at least to have him near. It obviously wasn’t enough.

He sat down heavily on the bed, the events of the past few days, few weeks, now coming into focus all at once, past his hazy state in denial of the past few hours. She watched the emotion play on his face and sat next to him. Close enough that their legs touched. She wanted him to know he wasn’t alone. She needed the physical reminder that she wasn’t, either.

“They put a bag over my head, the night you followed me, and took me into their headquarters.”

 _Jesus, Mulder_ , she thought.

“It made me feel claustrophobic, even though I could breathe. It smelled bad, too. My shirt, I had a flashback, to that feeling. That night. They led me in, and then they sat me down, and then strapped my hands to the table. And then they broke my finger.”

“Mulder.” She leaned into his unmoving side, wrapping her arms around his arm, supporting him and getting support from him in return. He didn’t stop there, the words tumbling out one after the other.

“They didn’t believe me, they thought I was spying on them. They were on to me. He didn’t break it immediately. He didn’t just snap it and get over it. He toyed with it, pulling it back, while Haley questioned be about the operation at the park. It - it hurt so much, Scully.”

“I know, Mulder. I know.”

“And I snapped, I yelled, I screamed at them both.” He continued in a monotone, the increasing speed of his words the only thing betraying his emotion. That, and the lone tear that escaped his eye. Scully pulled him closer, her head tucked into his shoulder, her arms around him, as close as she could get. “I headbutted the Nazi prick who was toying with me, and he got back up, and I told him if he touched me again he might as well kill me.

“And then, then the darndest thing happened Scully. I convinced Haley not to kill me. He had the can of toxin pointed right at me, he was about to spray it in my face, and I convinced him. You wanna know how I know that I convinced him?”

Scully shook her head, overwhelmed, afraid that if she opened her mouth she’d only let out a sob. She knew, she knew it was bad. The state he was in when he came back to his apartment, his finger broken. But she didn’t know it was like this.

“He said so, that he believed me. And then that prick ripped my finger back so hard I blacked out.”

She couldn’t hold it in any longer and sobbed silently into his shoulder. The stress, the worry, the outright fear she’d had for him since it all began—it all came out in a rush against his bare chest.

He moved, then, unfrozen from his state of remembrance, and wrapped his arm around her. “I’m sorry, Scully. Please don’t cry.”

She calmed down just enough, embarrassed at her reaction, and separated from him. Scully laid back on the bed, guiding Mulder back with her. The glow of the bedside lamp was all that allowed her to watch his face, and she did for as long as she could.  

“Then what happened.”

“You know the rest, Scully.” He mumbled his answer, eyes still shining at the ceiling.

“Tell me.”

“I had that meeting with Skinner and Leamus, went to a hotel, where Haley and his goon surprised me. Turns out I broke his nose.”

“Good.”

He snuffed a little breath at that, a parody of a laugh.

“Then I had to put the damn bag on my head again, and—” He stopped. He didn’t want to say this to her. Didn’t want to speak it into existence.

“Mulder, it’s okay. You can tell me. You need to tell me.”

“I can’t.”

“Because what happened for me, next, was that I thought I had lost you.” It was Scully’s turn to let go. “I figured out they were going to spray the money. And that you were with them. And it happened and then we were trying to find out which bank you had hit, and we couldn’t find you, and we were looking at all these screens, tiny screens, full of bank robberies, and I couldn’t find you, and then I saw you, and I knew it was you because of your hand. And you almost had to kill that man—"

“Scully, I don’t—”

“I can’t lose you, Mulder. I can’t do it.”

“I’m sorry."

“Just. Mulder, I need, I need a minute. I’ll be back. I need to get, I need to change. Okay? You get comfortable too. And I’ll be back.” She was out the door with pajamas in her hands before the last word left her mouth, shutting the bathroom door loudly.

-

Mulder was overwhelmed. Scully left him alone, which he desperately wanted just minutes ago and he instantly felt alone and ached for her to come back. He hated this gulf between them, this over-familiarity but lack of intimacy after five and a half years being so close.

The past year had been rough. The cancer, Emily, abduction scares. He had no idea how she coped through all of that. He was a wreck on the inside. He’d almost lost her too many times to count, and yet here they were still unsure about how to communicate.

He got up and mechanically changed into the pajamas she’d packed for him. For fuck’s sake, she knew what to pack for him, knew when to put her foot down and make him talk.

Maybe he was still in shock.

He’d almost died today. 

Fuck, he’d almost _died_ today and he was still holding back from her. No wonder they couldn’t talk, he was so closed off he’d sooner self-destruct with the pressure of his life internalized than be vulnerable around her. And what had that gotten him? Nearly shot execution style in an anonymous field, alone.

What did he want, in this exact moment? Mulder closed his eyes, breathing through his panic and the residual adrenaline still in his system. Deep breaths of Scully-scent simplified the answer – he wanted the same thing he’d always wanted. Scully. In any capacity, every day, every moment of his life. Maybe he’d finally had one too many close calls to give a fuck about professional boundaries. She’d made him come over, she’d taken care of him, she’d made him talk and listened and poured her own heart out to him. She’d held him, crying, in her bed.

Mulder felt like the biggest ass imaginable. He sat back down against the headboard, cradling his broken hand against his chest, and took deep breaths just like he’d coached himself to. Scully would be back, any minute.

-

This was too much. Overload. It was too much, and she couldn’t process it, but she had to. For Mulder. For God’s sake, she was acting like she was the victim here. She ripped off her clothing, throwing it in the hamper with unnecessary force. Deep breaths. She felt like shaking apart, on edge, like how Mulder acted when he finally appeared back at the bank.

Deep breaths.

Scully washed her face and combed out her hair, taking time to calm down so she could go back in there with him. If she waited too long, the moment could be in the past, the chance to air their grievances, their trauma, gone. That happened too often after these types of cases, and they always haunted her. When they did talk, when they weren’t ripped apart by circumstance or paperwork, it was healing. She didn’t have as many nightmares about those cases.

She didn’t want him to suffer more than he already had. What she really wanted, God, she thought. What she _really_ wanted was to hold him, comfort him in her bed, protect him and tell him he was loved and make sure he slept through the night. She wanted to be with Mulder, in any sense, any time. If the past year and a half had taught her anything, it was that life was fragile and she needed to take advantage of the time she had, with the people she loved. But she’d been dragging her feet, lying to herself that she was content with the status quo. Fuck the status quo, Mulder nearly died on this case. She could’ve lost him, really lost him. And then where would she be?

She stopped the thought before it went further.

Scully emerged from the bathroom fully dressed in her button up pajamas. They felt safe. She needed the comfort. She made a beeline to the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of water for her and Mulder, and some painkillers for Mulder’s finger.

Mulder was sitting on her bed, back against the headboard, dressed in the pajama pants and t-shirt she’d packed for him. He gave her a little smile when she entered and offered him the pills and water.

“Thanks doc.”

“Don’t mention it. How’s your finger?”

“It’s still broken.”

“Sounds about right.”

They shared a half-smile, feeling normal for two seconds. Scully settled next to him, not touching this time but more relaxed than earlier. “Tell me what happened next. Please.” She needed to know as much as he needed to talk about it.

“We don’t have to do this all tonight, Scully,” he said softly.

“If we don’t, when will we? I don’t want to push you, Mulder, but it’s important.”

He let out a sigh but started talking without complaint, and for that she was grateful. “You know what happened at the bank.”

She nodded, remembering the security footage. Giving up on space, needing to feel he was there again, and took his good hand in hers as he continued.

“Back at their basecamp, we burned the masks and the money. And Bremer pulled his gun on me.”

Scully tightened her grip. He was there, he was safe.

“Haley talked him down, and revealed that he thought Bremer was the mole, not me, based on the intel we got. And, Scully.”

“What?”

“Bremer pulled out a recording of us, the night you fixed my finger. He was listening in the whole time.”

Her mouth dropped open. She showed up, she knew what was going on, and she talked about it openly like an idiot and it almost got him killed. “Mulder,” she said, at a loss.

-

“Scully, no, it’s what saved me. Bremer knew I was working against them, and so was he. We were led to the edge of the property, Bremer made Haley leave, get in a car and drive off, god knows where. He led me through the property, and he made me kneel. And he put the gun to the back of my head. I didn’t know what was going to happen then,” he stopped, his voice finally breaking with everything he was holding in in order to tell Scully this part. “And I thought I was going to die.”

Scully gave up on maintaining any distance between them and slid to him, fully molding herself to his side, her leg over his, her head on his chest, both still leaning on the headboard. Her hand, over his beating heart. He reached up and pressed it against his chest, warmed at the feel of her clinging to him, and held on just as tight. 

“I heard the shot, and for a second I thought I was dead. That I was a ghost, or in the afterlife, or that it was my last fraction of a second being aware. But then I took a deep breath, and I saw that fucking goon laying on the ground next to me, dead. And Bremer told me to run. And I did.”

He hated saying this out loud, making it real, but something inside of him released just enough and finally felt safe again. He was away from them; the New Spartans were not a threat to him any longer. But, god, that feeling. His knees sinking into the damp earth. The tacky smell of rotting plants. The pain in his pinky finger. The image of Scully he pictured, smiling at him, just before the shot.

He kept talking, almost without meaning to.

“When we were walking, through the field, I kept thinking about you.” He whispered his secret against her hair. “I thought about how mad I was that I would die with this ugly piece of land and plastic as the last thing I saw, and not your face.”

-

Scully didn’t know what to say. There was nothing to say. Nothing she could say, through her tears. She just held on to him, being held in return, all out of tears to cry.

“I’m so glad you’re alive,” she finally said. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if…”

“You would’ve been fine,” he tried to reassure her. She huffed at his words, not believing him. “Eventually. I’m sure you’d throw an excellent funeral, Scully. But then you could do whatever you wanted, and you’d go on denying the existence of ghosts even when I kept haunting you.”

“You’d better haunt me, Mulder. I mean it, I don’t want to think about you not being here.”

At her tone, Mulder bowed his head above her, sniffing her hair and resting his cheek on her head. “Me too, Scully.”

They sat like that for a little while, in reassurance that they were alive and safe, their codependency at its most recognized. Eventually, Mulder noticed the darkness outside and made to get up. She grabbed his wrist, not allowing him to move far.

“Don’t go.”

“But, Scully,” he said.

“No. Stay here tonight,” she said in a small voice. “Please.” What she was sure of tonight was that she didn’t want to be alone, and she wanted him near.

They shift, pulling the covers up around them, and Mulder flicked the light off.

“Tell me if you want me to leave later.”

“I won’t want that.”

Laying in silence in her bed, she begins to question her moves tonight, how they ended up here, in her bed.

“Can I?” she moved closer, needing to be near him and not having the energy to fight it any longer.

Mulder opened his arm in response and she took up the space she had just vacated, and it felt so right.

-

“Scully, I’m sorry.” Mulder spoke into the darkness, afraid that he would say something to make her move away from his side. She was laying on his side and it was heaven, hell, all at once.

“For what, Mulder? You have nothing to apologize for.” Her voice retained an air of professionalism, even as she snuggled in closer.

“For lying to you. I should’ve told you about the mission, but I was afraid they would come after you.” He wanted to apologize for more, for being shitty toward her when she had every right to be suspicious, but he didn’t know what to say.

And he internally feels like he’s tainted from this case, like it marked him somehow, just like the profiling. He wiggled his broken finger as a reminder, drawing her closer with his good hand, wrestling between the two sensations.

“Mulder I’m just,” Scully sighed against his chest and it felt like a miracle, that she was in his arms after all of this. “I thought you were going to die. In – In Ohio, I practically convinced myself that they would find out and that they would kill you. And that I would find you, find your body, what was left of it…”

Mulder stuck his nose back in her hair, wanting to disappear into the smell of her, reside inside the skin of Dana Scully forever. His lips pressed into her hair, rough strands catching on his stubble like velcro.

-

Scully sought out his lips on the crown of her head, needing the contact. She moved up, drawn by his touch, by what had passed between them this night. In the sanctuary of her bed, she met his lips briefly with her own. A press. Reassurance.

She settled back down, head under his chin, already feeling too warm with their combined body heat under her covers. Neither of them made to move apart.

The sun crept slowly into the room the next morning, shedding light on two broken agents sharing a bed. A canyon between them, bisected by hands making contact above the sheets. A sanctuary of their own making.

**Author's Note:**

> For the Valentine’s Day Fic Exchange organized by @gaycrouton. This is my present to @minuete-blog (minuete on ao3), who requested angst, one-bed, hurt/comfort, and gut-wrenching-ness. Hope I delivered! And, also thanks to the anon on tumblr who requested a post Pine Bluff Variant fic, where Mulder is “broken by fear and anger” and where Scully helps put him back together. Some dialogue taken from the episode. And further thanks to @chekcough for writing advice.


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